“Buying prospect lists. What are your thoughts on that? And does your opinion differ when speaking B2B verses B2C?”

I’ve been with iContact, a Durham-based Email Service Provider, since 2007. In my early days at iContact, I spent a lot of time assisting customers with various inquiries on email marketing best practices, strategies, and common questions like: “Can I use purchased lists?”

The answer industry professionals always give to this question is “No.”

What Are Purchased Lists?

Purchased lists are email contact lists that are sold by individuals and companies called List Brokers. While the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act does not make this practice illegal, the use of such list(s) does actually violate the Anti-SPAM Act because the contacts on the purchased list did not grant your business explicit permission to solicit them via email.

Businesses seeking to build their contact lists are not told about this by list brokers, and therefore, I’ve heard horrible stories of business owners spending tens of thousands of dollars on lists which no legitimate Email Service Provider (ESP) will allow on their service.

Why Can’t Purchased Lists Be Used?

Some purchased lists are gathered without the knowledge of the email contacts, while other lists are populated by individuals that have contacted a company to provide them with specific information.

Purchased lists that are gathered without the knowledge of the email contacts are the worst of any contact list a company could become in possession of. None of the individuals on the list have given any type of permission for your business to contact them, nor will they likely be the target audience of the list purchaser.

Lists composed of contacts with a common purpose are also typically sold by List Brokers, and while they might be more targeted in nature, the contacts still have not given your business the explicit permission to contact them. A common example of this type of purchased list, is when a bride-to-be signs up for “more information” from a wedding planning site that shares it’s email addresses with list brokers. A list broker then compiles a large list of brides-to-be, and sells them to companies that cater to the wedding industry.

What Are The Consequences for Using Purchased Lists?

Keeping with our previous example where the bride-to-be has had her email sold to a list broker, let’s say it’s now 6 months after the wedding. Unfortunately, list brokers rarely follow up on the validity of their lists, and therefore, our unfortunate couple is now subject to a barrage of unsolicited emails pertaining to a wedding they’re already planned and completed. Depending on how many purchasers have obtained the list, this newly married couple could be facing months, if not years, of constant spam in their inbox.

Why True Marketing Professionals Don’t Use Purchased Lists

Marketing professionals have long known that regardless of how many visitors you receive, or how many followers you have on various networks, none of it matters if the people visiting your websites aren’t your target audience. Purchasing lists is like purchasing an audience of which you have no idea whether or not they are interested or even potential clients.

Moreover, emailing lists of contacts that don’t know who you are, or aren’t your target audience, will almost always result in excessively high spam complaints. These complaints are generated anytime a recipient clicks in their inbox that your message is “spam,” “junk,” or emailed to complaint to your ISP (Internet Service Provider, ie: AOL, Time Warner Cable, etc.).

Excessive spam complaints will cause ISPs worldwide to block your email address and/or domain from sending to their servers — effectively blocking your emails from reaching their users. This is also referred to as being “blacklisted.” The process to be removed from blacklists can be a long and arduous process that can take as little as a few hours, or as long as months and months of arbitration.

How Should Businesses Grow Their Lists?

The best contact lists are those grown organically. Design and publish a regular newsletter that provides value to your readers. It’s suggested that your email content should contain roughly 75% valuable information (educate your customers), while allotting 25% to actual sale content, but 100% of the newsletter should be relevant to your subscribers. Growing your lists starts with adding signup forms to your various online websites, including your social media pages like Facebook.

For businesses that operate with physical storefronts, capture your customer contact information through short customer questionnaires. Encourage your customers to stay in contact with news, events, and sales through email. Using these simple suggestions will provide you with a solid foundation which will help to grow your contact lists — quality lists that contain your targeted audience and will generate minimal spam complaints, if any.

[…] agree that permission-based lists are the way to go. Here’s an excellent article – Avoiding the Purchased List Email Marketing Trap – that cuts through the T&C clutter and provides a clear explanation of why it’s […]

[…] marketers agree that permission-based lists are the way to go. Here’s an excellent article – Avoiding the Purchased List Email Marketing Trap – that cuts through the T&C clutter and provides a clear explanation of why it’s best to […]

[…] marketers agree that permission-based lists are the way to go. Here’s an excellent article – Avoiding the Purchased List Email Marketing Trap – that cuts through the T&C clutter and provides a clear explanation of why it’s best to […]